What is said, with whatever inherent force or dignity, has neither power nor value to him who does not understand it;[28] and, as Professor Duncan observes, "No word can be to any man the sign of an idea, till that idea comes to have a real existence in his mind."-- _Logic_, p.62.In instruction, therefore, speech ought not to be regarded as the foundation or the essence of knowledge, but as the sign of it; for knowledge has its origin in the power of sensation, or reflection, or consciousness, and not in that of recording or communicating thought.

Dr.Spurzheim was not the first to suggest, "It is time to abandon the immense error of supposing that words and precepts are sufficient to call internal feelings and intellectual faculties into active exercise."-- _Spurzheim's Treatise on Education_, p.
94.
3.

But to this it may be replied, When God wills, the signs of knowledge are knowledge; and words, when he gives the ability to understand them, may, in some sense, become--"spirit and life." See _John_, vi, 63.

Where competent intellectual faculties exist, the intelligible signs of thought do move the mind to think; and to think sometimes with deep feelings too, whether of assent or dissent, of admiration or contempt.

So wonderful a thing is a rational soul, that it is hard to say to what ends the language in which it speaks, may, or may not, be sufficient.